Asperger's: The Engineer's Disease (PBS)

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Ive got a Lathe!

Hahaha. My dad is AS and an engineer. I'd show him this, but I don't talk to him about AS because he denies that he has it even though.

Come on. If I have it and we're basically the same person and there's a genetic link...



Anyway, I think it's pretty bold of them to mention Bill Gates in there. Diagnosing the dead is one thing, but Bill Gates is still alive. Diagnosing the living without ever meeting them is a bit creepier.

Besides, if they wanted to go the computer route, from what I've seen of Steve Wozniak on Kathy Griffin's show, he's a way better fit for AS.

I didn't consider becoming an engineer because arithmetic didn't come easily for me, even though I test very high in visual-spatial. One tester said to me that if I had pursued math, I'd be working on the space shuttle program now.

My sister works for a major engineering organization in NYC, and does well there, because she understands "quirks" of the engineering personality. As she said, "They're like people in our family."

Z

They could have picked some better examples.

I've never been able to admire Newton since I read Steven Hawking's description of the guy. According to Hawking, Newton was a real scumbag.

Bill Gates? I've never heard a computer whiz talking about how Windows is a well engineered system. The guy is undeniably a brilliant snake oil salesman when he's dealing with people who don't know anything and don't want to learn anything, which is most of the population, so he's rich. Also, it's undeniable he's ruthlessly competitive about climbing to the top of the hierarchy. Not somebody I'd admire.

Thinking about Einstein makes me wonder if anybody in the physics community today would bother considering the ideas of a clerk in a patent office. People seem to forget that he contributed very little to science after he left the patent office and became a professor.

The last thing we need is more stereotyping. We're not all males, we're not all geniuses, and we're not all engineers.

A hell of a lot of aspies are just struggling to get by.

speak for yourself. i'm happy the way i am, and i like the things that i can do because i have asperger's. if i had a choice, i would much rather be AS than NT, despite the social challenges.

No, most boys with Asperger's never finish an ordinary high school education.

Feeling dis-ease about a so-called disease topic

It has been some time since this programme was broadcast. I did not see it, and will try to find out if it can be rebroadcast or available on-line.

Is there a high proportion of engineers with AS. or a high proportion of AS persons who are engineers? Silicon Valley is supposed to have a high proportion of persons with AS who are computer scientists/software developers, or is it the other way around? Of course, not everyone is going to admit being AS, or want to be tested. Had I been successful in my studies or employment, I might have not have needed to be tested. (As it is, for me there is a combination of factors that prevent me from succeeding, and some are extraneous and merely co-exist with AS, but are not synonymous with AS.)

Hell, most of my family is undiagnosed AS (me being the most affected, and the only one with a diagnosis.) My dad's a civil engineer, my mother is going into environmental sciences but with a job background in civil/environmental engineering, and I'm planning on majoring in mechanical with emphasis on aeronautics. Coincidence?

God invented computers just for the Aspies.

ruveyn

Nice Lathe

Engineer is something new. Before that were skilled craftsmen, they owned, understood, and used tools.

My injection mold maker fits the AS profile, but as a successful business owner, does work for NASA, no one notices.

Most machine shops I have dealt with have several.

The guy who does local warrenty work on electronics, the guy who fixes microscopes,

Up intil 1990, no one had a degree in computers.

The traits of a narrow and intense long term focus lead to doing well in some fields.

A degree in engineering was a form of managment that at least knew something about production.

They learn about, but cannot run a lathe, milling machine, make a die.

Knowhow and original thought are not taught.

In Startrek Engineering are advanced repairmen. Not designers, but mechanic techs.

When airlines buy a plane from Boeing, they have it delivered, then tear it down and have real mechanics put it back together right.

BMW supports bike shop mechanics, will fly them to Germany for training, for they are seeking the naturals that schools cannot produce, and there is promotion into other industries.

It is two different worlds. Schools are by nature ten years behind, and an Engineering degree has a half life of five years, in that time, half of all you know is obsolete.

Taking natural mechanical talent, training them at the factory, working with the best on the front line is what keeps production and development going.

Yes, most engineers are afflicted with AS. Unfortunately the world needs human calculators and as an Architect I have learned to coexist with these beings. As an architect, it's a cruel trick of the universe that we must tolerate and coexist with engineers. I have never witnessed such degrees of cruelty and insensitivity as I've seen among engineers. They are narrow, uninspired, vicious and self-agrandising. Just remember, at the final curtain call, we will ALL answer for our actions. Good luck with that........

Well, let's see.

My dad's father was an electrical engineer, though I don't think that's the side of the family the AS came from.

My dad loved being a coal miner-- lots of tools and machines and working alone. He was the self-described King of the Short-Handled Shovel. In retirement, he discovered that he was and enjoyed being an intuitive jackleg handyman.

My mom's father also enjoyed a career in the mines. After being forced into retirement, he found a lot of fulfillment as a trustee for the church. He spent a lot of his free time fixing drippy faucets and peeling paint and wiggly pews. He liked to wax and polish things. He could not drive-- fried his nerves-- and stuttered painfully when he tried to talk-- unless he was working on something, building a birdhouse, building with blocks or models with me, showing me how to hunt arrowheads in the field by the creek...

Every guy I've dated (all 3 of them) have been engineers. My son is always happier with Legos or an erector set or a crayon or a hoe in his hands.

I have greatly enjoyed teaching myself carpentry and plumbing. I look forward to learning electrical work. The world just looks like a better place when I'm taking something apart.

I would not have lasted in engineering school-- I do not have the working memory for higher mathematics; algebra drove me absolutely insane and you couldn't get me near calculus with a cattle prod-- but I really blew it when I listened to all those as*holes who said I was too smart for trade school.

Getting a degree in English Lit was easy and fun, but I'd have been much happier as a master plumber or carpenter or mechanic or something.

Yeah, I can see it.

Being as to how the original article was written in 2007, I will try very hard not to have a temper tantrum about confusing "tact" with "empathy."

Necro much

A condition of personality is only a disease when it prevents one from functioning in his or her environment. Saying that no one wants to have Aspergers or HFA is a rather arrogant assumption of someone who cannot imagine that successful and fulfilling lives can be, and are built by those who are not neurotypical. Successful Aspergians overcome, get around, recreate and eventually learn to manipulate the NT social maze. We find a way that works and stick with it.

For someone like me (and all my mining and electical engineering forbears) it is hard to understand a life that does not include the intense creativity and rich inner life that is the positive part of AS. We eventually learn the social skills stuff as necessary, and some of us even get pretty insightful about it.

Yes, it can be a very painful situation when we are young, but it can and does get better as we age into ourselves. Tragically, some do not survive the process - but enough of us do go on to have families and AS kids as well. Perhaps because we are social outsiders - we can exercise a unique vantage point. Having a label that is formulated as a disorder or a disease speaks a much about the society as it does the individual. if someone has a label that is negative, their opinions can be ignored and they can be relegated to the sub-normal or 'not quite human' category...with the attendant evils that such a point of view generates.

There have always been people like us

Bingo! My view precisely. I do not consider my Aspergarian condition a disability. In spite of the difficulties I had when I was young, I consider it a Gift.

ruveyn